December 12, 2009

Can it be another year is already gone? I just can’t believe it! Wow, so much has happened in our world lately. The BIGGEST news is that my awesome husband was ordained last month! He is now a pastor at Northern Hills and I am a pastor’s wife! I am so proud and excited for my man! God has us on such an amazing journey…God’s grace is a beautiful and undeserved mystery. Never in our wildest dreams did we see ourselves here. Here are some of my favorite pictures from that memorable day…Courtesy of Maria Mitchell, Life Clicks Photography (edited by me:)

Another crazy thing is that my Carson turned 1! I can’t believe it!!! He is walking everywhere and getting quite fast. And I’m VERY pleased to share that his first word was “mama”! My first/last son to say “mama” before “dada”. I think he’s working on “no-no”…it sounds like “na-na!” He eats more than Ryan and AJ together and he loves his milk. I still think investing in a milk cow would be a wise thing! Pictures are courtesy of Maria Mitchell, Life Clicks Photography. (Edited by me:)

And finally…my sweet boy, AJ, turns 4 tomorrow! Wow, he is such a blessing. He is just full of love. I have to share a video I found the other day. This was when AJ turned one:) Seriously…how stinkin’ cute is this boy???

June 21, 2009

We’ve had quite the exciting week around the Green household! It began Tuesday when I found out that AJ had taught himself to swing. As long as the swing isn’t too high, he can get on by himself and swing ’til the cows come home.

Then we have Ryan’s 1st Tball game on Friday! That was a BLAST! Ryan smacked one right up the middle and got an RBI. Really every player gets an RBI, but the excitement is still intense! It was surreal watching my “baby” play Tball. Where has 5 years gone?

Ryan's RBI!

Playing 1st base

AJ is ready to hit!

Later that night Carson tried Puffs for the first time. He really didn’t know what to think of them!

As if my head wasn’t spinning enough with ALL my kids have accomplished…Saturday evening, Chris taught Ryan how to ride his bike without training wheels!

One proud daddy!

Chris explaining the rules: Keep your head up and your feet on the pedals!

Our story begins on June 12th we leave at about 2:30pm. We make one stop, King Soopers, because the baby needs bananas. We’re off! Finally, I’m told where we are going, Mary’s Lake Campground in Estes Park. Which is so appropriate for our 1st camping trip because (here comes the mushy stuff) it’s where Chris and I first told each other “I love you” and where Chris was planning to propose-the weather ruined that plan too, actually, funny that we should be conquered again by the weather in Estes Park.

We arrive at approximately 4:45pm. We have a plan because I’ve been reading a book called Kids & Camping-which Chris has teased me about for days! The boys and I were going to collect wood for our fire, wait we find out that’s prohibited. Plan B, we purchase wood for the fire. The boys and I clear the big rocks from the area where the tent will go and Daddy is going to start putting the tent together. Ryan and AJ both cleared one rock, so I guess they were done. They were off finding sticks and exploring-exactly what I wanted them to do. It was so great watching them run around the campground.

We noticed the wind right away. It’s barely 50 degrees and with the wind it was even colder. It was pretty funny watching Chris try to get the tent set up. It was equally funny watching me start a fire. While we each had our jobs, Carson is jumping around in his hop and pop. He has his warm onesie on, a jacket, and a hat…why didn’t I take a picture???

The tent was up in no time and I had successfully started a fire and kept it going. Dinner was on and coming along great! So far so good, we got this camping thing down. Fifteen minutes later our luck, as they say, started to change.

There were already two holes in the floor of the tent. Oh great! Of course, I’m worried about that because there has been rain everyday for two weeks. The plan changes again…now I’m off to town to get a tent repair kit and a tarp, no we didn’t have one-and it’s a bit of a sore subject. 🙂 Meanwhile, Chris will stay withthe boys. Since dinner wasn’t finished and I had some hungry boys on my hands, I decide we’ll start with an appetizer, toasted marshmallows-of course! I got them on the poky wire thing (yes, that is the official camp verbage) But then I had to go because I’m on a time crunch, Carson needs to eat in less than an hour. Before I leave I snap a few pictures from the van, then I have to go. Little did I know I was about to miss all the fun camping.

However, beforeI go, I subliminally tell Chris to watch over our dinner.

I make it into town and find the visitor’s center right away, they point me to an outdoory store about a mile down the road. They didn’t have a big enough tarp, so they point me to a True Value store…where is it? Right across the highway from the visitor’s center. Grrr, this is fun right?

I make it back right when little Carson is at his limit. He didn’t take a nap in his pack ‘n play (in our torn tent) and now he’s hungry. He was such a trooper! Chris tells me they had such a great time and that he sampled our dinner and was complimenting me on my camp cooking skills. Unfortunately, that was about 20 minutes ago. I pull the “hobos” off the fire and they are charred. Not well done, charred. I’m able to salvage a few bites for the kids to munch.

Just about this time Carson rolls right off the air mattress on the ground. He was okay, thank God, but Ryan is nearly in tears because he’s worried about his baby brother. We love on our Carson and I begin to feed him. It’s at this point when I notice the wind is gone. It’s perfectly calm. The weather was turning in our favor! Or so I thought.

The new plan is while I’m feeding Carson, Chris is going to repair the tent, be on rock removal and lay the tarp down. Ready…break! Chris starts his job, but after a few minutes, I get this feeling that we better set the back of the van up for Carson. At the time, my reasoning was because he was so tired and we really didn’t know how long the tent repair would take. We also get the boys in their warm clothes. So I’m feeding Carson, the older boys are munching on what’s left of our charred dinner and Chris is pulling stakes.

Ryan says, “Hey, it’s raining.” Chris asks me, “Is it?” I don’t notice any rain drops, “No, it’s not.” But then there was one. The timing was so key here. I move Carson into the van to bundle him like the little brother on Christmas Story (“Mom, I can’t put my arms down!”) and lay him in the pack ‘n play that’s in the van. Just as Chris pulls the last stubborn stake from the ground, this wind literally comes out of nowhere! Chris sends the boys to the bathroom for shelter. Seconds later those sparse raindrops became a torrential downpour! We are running around frantically trying to put lids on bins to keep our stuff dry. The firewood! I run it to the bathroom. The mattresses! Chris runs them to the bathroom! The bedding is in the van, and I also check on the baby, he’s not sleeping, but he’s dry & warm, and not crying…yet. Chris goes to check on the boys. I turn around to see our once tent turn into a parachute. I’m screaming, “Chris! Chris! Chris!” He comes to the rescue and I ask him the pivotal question, “At what point do we call it?” We didn’t need to discuss it, he starts breaking the tent down and I check on Carson who is now screaming. My poor baby! I climb in the van which is piled high with stuff, like the mountain we were going to hike.

What a 1st camping trip! At 8:00pm we pulled out of Mary’s Lake and Campground headed home to sleep in our non-ripped, floored warm beds. But before I leave you to laugh at us in our naivety, I will close with this: After the rainstorm passed us, AJ comes out of the bathroom with his pajama shoes (as our kids call them) and undies down at his ankles, walking toward me dragging his pj’s in the mud and water. All he says, “Um, Mama, I need a little help.” Don’t we all, son, don’t we all?

June 5, 2009

Before you go saying, “Oh that’s so cute!” (Please say the following inyour best Paul Harvey voice)…Let me tell you the rest of the story:

So I peak in on AJ because earlier when he was supposedto be napping he decided that he was going to go poo-poo by himself (and wipe). I’m tucking him back in bed, but now I’m stripping the bed, the pillowcase, and yes it’s even on the wall. How he manages to get it on the wall, but not the carpet is something that will alway amaze me and something I’ll always be grateful for!

Round two. I look in on AJ because now I’m sure he’s asleep and this is where I find him. How cute is what I say, but as I’m walking downstairs to grab my camera. I wonder, “Was that poo I smelled?” (Now in your best Phoebe voice)…Oh no. Yes, he used his baby brother’s Bumbo as a toilet and his big brother’s clothes as toilet paper. After all, what are brothers for? The poor Bumbo didn’t even see it coming.

And now for something completely different…

You’d think by now this mother of three would know what it means when a 3-yr old is quiet…too quiet. Trouble! I made the mistake of leaving the washed strawberries on the counter while I tended to chores. I returned too late to catch AJ “red” handed.

He had taken one bite out of each one and lined them up all in a row. Oh AJ!

I had to post pictures from Fossil Rim. This place was crazy cool! It’s about 2 hours south of Dallas. You drive your car through and actually feed the animals by hand! I was a bit nervous at first, but relaxed after the first few. Although, I never did brave feeding the ostrich. The picture we got was the one that bit AJ. The first animal we meet and poor AJ winds up with an ostrich bite. That freaked Ryan out so badly that he sat in the back of the van until the last 1/2 of the drive. He wanted to sit up with us to feed the giraffes. They were our favorite. God’s creations never cease to amaze me!

Here’s the Cheetos Story…

On the way home, the boys were given a little Cheetos snack on the way home. We heard them crunching away. Then I heard less crunching and decided to check it out. AJ is completely passed out with orange fingers and the Cheetos bag right next to him. Almost as if he’s guarding it. He stays like this until we’re about 15 minutes from home. We hear crunching again. Again I check. AJ is half awake and half asleep munching on Cheetos. A few minutes later the crunching stops and he’s asleep again. This happens two more times. It was hysterical! I love my boys!

April 7, 2009

Had I known it was so easy to make a volcano, I would have done it months ago! The boys got a Volcano book for Christmas and in the back there are directions to make a volcano and this weekend I made good on my promise to make a volcano with my boys. So here we are with the play by play…

March 15, 2009

One day this past summer Ryan saw the Discovery channel’s reality TV show: Storm Chasers at Uncle Larry & Aunt Misty’s house. It was obsession at first sight! We watched the whole season together as family. It was You Tube videos about tornadoes, playing “Storm Chasers”, he checked out EVERY book that our Brighton Library has-twice, our Mom Van became the DOW or the TIV (depending on the day), and Ryan became, Dr. Josh.

On one of the shows this past season it mentioned that The Center for Severe Weather Research is based in Boulder. Knowing that storm chasing season is right around the corner, I decided to Google it. I found Dr. Josh Wurman’s website-(he’s one of the main “characters” on Storm Chasers). And on his website he has his e-mail. Then, I get this idea…how cool would it be for the my Dr. Josh to meet the real Dr. Josh. So I e-mailed him and explained how much Ryan loves the show, and how he calls himself Dr. Josh, plays Storm Chasers, etc and would he be willing to meet us in person? I received an e-mail that same day and a date was set: March 13th. Hopefully a day that Ryan will remember to celebrate his tornado crazy 4th year of life. And who knows…maybe he’ll be Dr. Ryan Green in charge of his own set of storm chasers some day?!?

February 9, 2009

Being a family is such a blessing! I love to see tender moments shared between brothers and making up new games to play together. Daddy and Ryan were giving Carson a bath the other day and I was able to capture this beautiful picture:

Ryan loves his brother so much and is such a wonderful helper!

Tonight we were playing hide-n-go-seek. Which is always fun! Especially when playing with a 3-yr old that hides and then yells, “Here I am!” before you can go seek him. It’s so funny! Then we have Ryan…when Chris and I seek we pretend we don’t know where he is. Which when playing with a 4-yr old, you can actually hear where he hides…doors closing, chairs moving…you know what it’s like if you’ve played with a preschooler. So we say, “Hmmm, I wonder where Ryan is? Is he in the closet? No. Is he under the table? No….” and so it goes. Well, it’s Ryan’s turn to seek. He finishes counting to 20 and skips 16 again :)…he looks right at me (I’m under the table) and says: Hmmm, I wonder where Mommy and Daddy are? Let me stress, that he looked right at me. It was too cute!

So Ryan gets a flashlight out, one of his favorite toys to play with and I get an idea. Daddy and AJ team up and Ryan and I are a team. We play Flashlight Hide-n-go-seek! With all the lights out one team hides and one team seeks. Ony the catch is you can only have the light to go searching for the other team. It may just be my new favorite game. I think it’s Ryan’s too!